RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining radiation therapy with chemotherapy may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving methotrexate and zidovudine together with radiation therapy works in treating patients with HIV-related primary central nervous system lymphoma.

Patients are followed every 3 months for 1 year and then every 6 months thereafter.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: This study will accrue 14 patients.

Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:

18 Years and older

Genders Eligible for Study:

Both

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

No

Criteria

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

Histologically proven HIV-related non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the CNS

No systemic lymphoma

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

18 and over

Performance status:

WHO 0-3

Life expectancy:

Not specified

Hematopoietic:

WBC at least 3000/mm^3

Platelet count at least 80,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

No serious impairment of liver function

Renal:

No serious impairment of renal function

Creatinine clearance at least 40 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

No serious impairment of cardiac function

Neurologic:

Neurological functional status 0-3

Other:

No prior or active CNS-opportunistic infections

No AIDS dementia complex

No active systemic infections

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

No prior chemotherapy or radiotherapy

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00003261